Entries in Cate Edwards
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Sara D. Davis/Getty ImagesUPDATE: John Edwards' defense team has rested its case. Neither Edwards, his mistress Rielle Hunter, nor his daughter Cate were called up to testify.

Closing arguments are set to begin on Thursday.

(GREENSBORO, N.C.) -- The nearly $1 million in donations used to hide John Edwards' mistress and love child were not campaign contributions, the Federal Election Commission concluded, according to documents filed in Edwards' trial.

The FEC audit of Edwards' 2008 presidential campaign was submitted to the court by Edwards' defense team on Tuesday.

Edwards is on trial for allegedly using nearly $1 million in donations from wealthy backers Fred Baron and Rachel "Bunny" Mellon to keep his affair secret to protect his presidential ambitions and later his hopes of winning a spot as vice president or attorney general.

Edwards' lawyers are asking the judge to admit an audio recording of the July 2011 FEC meeting when the audit was closed.

Defense lawyers say the recording shows Commissioner Donald McGahn stating, "It's odd for me to say that the transaction is a campaign transaction" and "I'm not sure that [the monies paid by Mellon and Baron are] a reportable. Actually I can say [the monies are] not a report, in my view, not reportable."

The commission voted unanimously to close the audit.

One of those commissioners, Scott Thomas, was on the witness stand at Edwards' trial Tuesday morning. However, U.S. District Court Judge Catherine Eagles would not allow Thomas to tell jurors his view on how the law applied to what Edwards' allegedly did in 2007 and 2008. Eagles has said the jury should decide, without guidance from experts, what the purpose of the gifts were.

Attention in the courtroom on Wednesday, however, will not be on documents. Observers will be holding their breath to see if Edwards' mistress Rielle Hunter, or even John Edwards himself, takes the stand.

Both are on the defense team's list of possible witnesses for Wednesday, although experts are skeptical that Edwards' lawyers are willing to put the unpredictable Hunter on the stand or would allow Edwards to be subjected to cross examination by prosecutors.

One person likely to take the stand before the defense wraps up its case this week is Edwards' daughter Cate.

Cate Edwards, 30, has sat behind her father through almost every day of testimony leaving only when a witness described her mother Elizabeth's emotional anguish at discovering Edwards' illicit affair and illegitimate child.

Cate may corroborate her father's story that the financial donations were meant as gifts to enable Edwards to hide the affair from his wife, Elizabeth, who was dying of cancer. ﻿

Steve Exum/Getty Images(GREENSBORO, N.C.) -- John Edwards and his mistress Rielle Hunter might both be called to the witness stand Wednesday, delivering explosive back-to-back testimony and concluding nearly a month of court proceedings that have laid bare the steamy details of their affair and the trail of money used to cover it up.

Additionally, Edwards lawyers said Tuesday, they potentially will call Edwards' adult daughter Cate Edwards as well as Andrew Young, once Edwards' most trusted aide who helped hide Edwards' affair and even claimed paternity of his love child.

Edwards is on trial for allegedly using nearly $1 million in donations to hide Hunter and later their baby daughter during his quest for the 2008 presidential nomination. If convicted, he could be sentenced to 30 years in prison.

Edwards' defense team submitted the potential witness lineup at the end of proceedings Tuesday. It could be a blockbuster finish to a trial that has proceeded more like a Shakespearian tragedy than a hearing on campaign finances.

It is uncertain whether John Edwards will testify because that would open him up to a withering cross-examination by prosecutors, and it has already been established that Edwards lied at different times about much of the case, including about fathering Hunter's child.

An even greater unknown is Hunter. Since conducting a handful of interviews in 2010, Hunter has remained largely unseen and unheard. The current status of her relationship with Edwards remains unknown.

Hunter was listed as a potential prosecution witness as well, but the government never called her to the stand in three weeks of arguments. Though she is at the center of the scandal, lawyers for both sides may be too nervous to call her, unaware of just exactly what she might say.

Listing Edwards and Hunter on their witness list may just be an effort by the defense to keep the prosecution off-balance.

Cate Edwards, 30, was listed as a potential witness Tuesday, but did not testify. Of the three, she is most likely to take the stand. A lawyer herself, she has sat behind her father through almost every day of testimony, leaving only when a witness described her mother Elizabeth's emotional anguish at discovering Edwards' illicit affair and illegitimate child.

Cate may corroborate her father's story that the financial donations were meant as gifts to Edwards, enabling him to hide the affair from his wife, Elizabeth, who was dying of cancer. But her potential testimony will be a tightrope for her because she does not want to hurt either parent, says a reporter with sources close to the Edwards family.

Steve Exum/Getty Images(GREENSBORO, N.C.) -- The most difficult testimony John Edwards may have to endure in his trial is scheduled for Tuesday, when his daughter Cate is expected to take the stand and tell the court how much her father loved her mother.

Cate Edwards, 30, has been Edwards' most visible supporter throughout the month-long trial, but even she left his side when the testimony has concentrated on the hurt that her father's affair caused her mother.

John Edwards is on trial for allegedly using nearly $1 million in donations to hide his mistress Rielle Hunter, and later their baby daughter, during his quest for the 2008 presidential nomination. If convicted, he could be sentenced to 30 years in prison.

Edwards' defense team has argued that the money was not intended for his political campaign, but meant to hide his affair from his wife, Elizabeth, who was dying of cancer. Testimony on Monday depicted Elizabeth Edwards as a woman with a "volcanic" temper who feared humiliation for herself and her children because of her husband's infidelity.

Cate Edwards will be expected to corroborate her father's version of events.

"I think we will expect to hear more details from Cate how he loved Elizabeth, how he tended to her in her final days," Sandra Sobieraj Westfall, the Washington bureau chief for People magazine and someone close to the Edwards family, told ABC News. "You will hear more about that that was his primary concern in hiding the affair, protecting his family."

"Cate told me not too long ago, I'm the child of two parents... And she is going to stick by him. She said that is what families do. She believes he committed no crime," Westfall said.

Westfall noted that Cate Edwards, who is a lawyer, was recently married and lives in Washington, D.C., with her husband. But she has returned to North Carolina for her father.

"She's a newlywed, and her husband lives in D.C. full time. Cate has packed up her life and went to down Chapel Hill to help her dad out with her two younger siblings. She is really kind of head of the family right now, taking her mother's place, coordinating the kids' schedules. And she is working it out with her dad. They are very close still, you know," Westfall said.﻿